Jeweler&#39;s patterned wire



United States Patent 3,165,825 .IEWEEJERS PA'ITEENED WIPE Greeniiei H. Barney, Attlehoro, Mass, assignor to Leash 81 Garner Qoinpany, a corporation of Massachusetts Filed Nov. 27, 1963,"er. No. 325,465 a 3 Claims. {61. 29-411) This inventionrelates to jewelers patterned wire and particularly to the process for manufacturing variable colored wire. It is often desired to produce an ornamental type of wire in which the surface ornamentation there a number of difierent metals may be combined into a particular shape other than round and which may, therefore, be drawn to round shape and through successive operations drawn down to a fine jewelry type of wire.

Basically, the invention consists in the noivel method of producing the jewelers patterned wire by first bonding together strips of different colored metal and drawing the same into red form and further drawing the same into wire form and then twisting the wire thus drawn.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a bar consisting of a number of relatively thin pieces of metal secured to gether each of the metals being of a difierent color, with no like metals being in contact so that a contrasting relationship is provided;

FIG. 2 is a detached view showing the first forming operation;

FIG. 3 is an end view partly in sections showing the material being further drawn;

FIG. 4 is a successive draw;

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing the material after it has been twisted;

FIGS. 6 through 9 show successive steps of'drawing solder filled wire in accordance with the method;

FIGS. 10 through 13 illustrate-thesteps in the method of forming gold filled wire; and

FIGS. 14 through 17 illustrate further methods of forming base metal wires.

In the drawings 2% represents a strip of metal of one color, 21 represents a strip of metal of a second color, 22 represents a strip of metal of a third color and 23 repre-, sents a strip of metal of a fourth color. These strips are placed together in an orientation whereby no single strip butts a strip of a similar color. In a group of eight, for example, the strip may consist of solid gold alloy such as strips of red karat gold, green karat gold, yellow karat gold, and white karat gold, or alternately they might consist of strips of all base metals such as red copper, yellow low brass, green high brass and white nickel. They are furnished in rectangular form as shown to provide essentially a rectangular section bar generally designated 25. Each of the'stripsare soldered together at their interfaces to provide the bar 25 as shown or in some instances the metal may be bonded together by a solid face bonding technique through the use of pressure to effect a true interface molecular bond.

The next step of the process is the insertion of this rectangular bar in between a pair of drawing rolls 27 and 28 such that the bar is inserted on a diagonal thereof as a more cylindrical'shape. The drawing operation may. I

' tion is illustrated in FIG. 3 Where it will be seen that.v the position of the "various stripes of metal has been .re-,

formed into apseudo-cylindrical shape with a portion. thereof as at 29 and 30 squeezing out at the sides between the rolls 27 andZS. In the succeeding'step as illus, .trated in FIG. 4 one reduced scale the drawn rod whichis now generally designated 32 will be rotated9 0 and in serted in between a pair of rolls 33 and 3% whichrolls are spaced closer together and Whose inner radius is smallerthan the rolls 27, '23. As the steps proceed in' this manner, the tips 29i-and 39 will be eliminated and the rod which is now genenally designated 35'wil1 assume he continued by repeating these steps insuccessively smaller drawing rolls each time rotating the rod until the desired size of wire is produced for the end result needed. a r

At this point in the operation, the wire is twisted a requisite amount to produce a helical pattern of the various metals such as shown in FIG. 5 and we see now that we have an alternating pattern consisting of helical strips of metal, 23,21, 20 and 22 which is precisely the same order of metals that we find around the top half I of the block 25*as viewed in FIG. 1. The bottom half being represented by the next section of helical bands;

This pattern, therefore, repeats on a double-repeat basis throughout the length of the wire. Sometimes preferable, and as an alternate to the above method, is to draw the rod down to a workable size and length and then place it into a twister head, twisting the same into helical pattern as shown in FIGS after which the rod is drawn further down into wire size; In this fashion, the shorter lengths are. being handled which sometimes facilitates the manufacturing process.

Referring now to FIG. 6, I have shown a block of metal 40, which may either be a gold alloy or a base metal, in which there is drilled a hole 41. Within this hole 41 I place solder in a molten state and permit the solder to solidify. I then solder or otherwise'bond over to faces of the block 40 two strips of metal 42 and 43 which are of different colors than the main block 46 and pass this rectangular block through an identical drawing operation by first placing it on a diagonal and between a pair of drawing rollers such as 27, 28 and form a pseudo-cylindrical rod such as is generally designated at 45 in FIG. 8. Here, as in the previous embodiment, it will be seen that by successive drawing operations, orienting the rod at 90 each time, the rod will be drawn down to the desired diameter and the successive arrangement of colors will be maintained. At this point, the rod 45 ma, be twisted to produce a helical pattern such as is generally designated at 47 in FIG. 9. As suggested in the preceding description, the rods may then be drawn down into the desired diameter by passing it through successive drawing operations which will, of course, lengthen the rod due to the displacement of the material. The end result to produce a Wire having a solder core which is desired in the wire link industry as many of the automatic wire chain producing machines utilize a solder i filled wire core to hold each formed chain link together in end to end abutting relationship.

Referring to FIG. 10, I have shown therein a possible form for forming gold filled wire. In this particular case in keeping with the gold fill standards, a composition or nickel bar 50 is used and to this bar which is of rectangular section and may consist of a strip something on the order of three inches wide, two plate fiatstock metals such as 51 and 62 of different color are fixed thereto. These may be a red gold '51 and a yellow gold 52 and then the bar 50 is cut into three square pieces along arrears Patented den. '29, I955 such as the section 55 as shown in FIG. 11 two additional purposes, it may be necessary to drill a hole in the bar such as a hole 58 and molten solder may be filled in this hole for the purposes described in the previous embodiment. This square bar with the metal strips-bonded thereto may now be subjected to a series of drawing operations as above described in connection with the first embodiment whereupon the first draw a rod such as generally shown at 59 in FIG.. 12 will be produced. .This may now be drawn down in succeeding steps until the requisite diameter of the rod is produced whereupon it may be subjected to twisting operations in the twister header to produce a helical pattern as generally shown in FIG. 13, in which the repeat lengthwise will be colors 56, 51, 57 and 52.

There are, of course, many Variations in the manner in which one can place together the various colored metals. Probably the simplest method is to take four square bars such as bars 60 which is illustrated as being of red gold, a bar 61 of yellow gold, a bar 62 of white gold, and a bar 63 of green gold all as illustrated in FIG. 14 which bars may be soldered together in the square shape shown or otherwise joined together and then the bars subjected to the drawing operations on the diagonal as described above.

Other variations can be imagined such as taking two square bars and one rectangular bar, of green gold 64, red gold 65-.and yellow gold 66 and forming them together and cutting them lengthwise on the line 67 into two equal lengths and they may be joined to a central bar 68 of say white gold which will have a solder hole 69 therethrough and this form is subjected to the rolling operation. A still further variation is shown in FIG. 17 where four different metal bars of various thicknesses but of thersame length are soldered together, such as green gold 70, red gold 71, white gold 72, and yellow gold 73. This produces still a diiferent pattern when it is rolled .in the rod rolling mill and is merely another color variation for a pleasing aesthetic appearance.

- gold strips are fixed on the other faces such as the White V gold strip 56 and the green gold strip 57. For certain I claim: 7 I 1. The method of manufacturing variable colored wire comprising assembling and securing together in face to face relation a plurality of elongated strips of diiferent colored metals into square cross sectional shape subjecting said assembled strips to a rod rolling mill by passing the assembled strips lengthwise through the rolling mill shaped to change the square cross sectional shape to substantially cylindrical shape with the stripes formed by the dilferent colored metals extending longitudinally thereof.

2. The method of manufacturing variable colored wire comprising assembling and securing together in face to face relation a plurality of elongated strips of different colored metals into square cross'sectional shape subjecting said assembled strips to a rod rolling mill by passing the assembled strips lengthwise through the rolling mill with the diagonal of its cross sectional shape directed toward the rolls axes on each successive pass through the mill, whereby the stripes formed by the different colored metals extend longitudinally of the wire.

3. The method of manufacturing variable colored wire comprising assembling and securing together in face to face relation a plurality of elongated strips of different colored metals into square cross sectional shape, subjecting said assembled strips to a rod rolling mill by passing the assembled strips lengthwise through the rolling mill with the diagonal of its cross sectional shape directed toward the rolls axes on each successive pass through the mill and thereafter twisting and drawing the twisted strips to provide a rod of the desired diameter whereby the stripes formed by the different colored metals extend longitudinally of the wire.

References Qited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,159,644 Brecht Nov. 9, 1915 1,883,205 Whitehead Oct. 18, 1932 2,134,014 Whitehead Got. 25, 1938 2,612,581 Robinson Sept. 30, 1952 5,091,026 Hill et a1. May 28, 1963 

1. THE METHOD OF MANUFACTURING VARIABLE COLORED WIRE COMPRISING ASSEMBLING AND SECURING TOGETHER IN FACE TO FACE RELATION A PLURALITY OF ELONGATED STRIPS OF DIFFERENT COLORED METALS INTO SQUARE CROSS SECTIONAL SHAPE SUBJECTING SAID ASSEMBLED STRIPS TO A ROD ROLLING MILL BY PASSING THE ASSEMBLED STRIPS LENGTHWISE THROUGH THE ROLLING MILL SHAPED TO CHANGE THE SQUARE CROSS SECTIONAL SHAPE TO SUBSTANTIALLY CYLINDRICAL SHAPE WITH THE STRIPES FORMED BY THE DIFFERENT COLORED METALS EXTENDING LONGITUDINALLY THEREOF. 